Informal outdoor furniture, particularly of the type intended for use on decks and patios, has become quite popular. Manufactures of such furniture are called upon to offer practical, comfortable products to the consumer. For aesthetic, functional and cost reasons, it is sometimes desirable to design furniture, including chairs, which employ a supporting web suspended on a frame which is in turn suspended on a frame of the chair. The sling frame is removable from the chair, which is known as a sling chair. This construction arose since it is easier and less expensive to construct the sling and chair frame separately. Examples of sling chairs are seen in U.S. Pat. No. 5,716,101, issued to Richard D. Frinier et al. on Feb. 10, 1998, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,911,478, issued to Lloyd Goodman on Jun. 15, 1999. These prior art sling chairs lack a side rail adapted to receive and retain a cross member spanning both side rails, while also retaining a fabric seating member, as seen in the present invention. Other chair designs include those shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,234,226, issued to Donald B. Colby on Nov. 18, 1980, and U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,094,507 and 5,224,760, both issued to Terence Gibbs respectively on Mar. 10, 1992. These prior art sling chairs lack side rails adapted to receive and retain a cross member spanning both side rails, while also retaining a fabric seating member, as seen in the present invention.
Prior art conventional sling chair construction arose since it is easier and less expensive to construct the sling and chair frame separately. However, it is apparent that conventional construction of sling chairs entails costly duplication. There remains a need to simplify construction of sling chairs, in particular, to eliminate duplicative members.
Applicant's prior solutions to these challenges, shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,293,624 and 6,585,323, both of which are incorporated by reference in their entirety, described sling chairs having side rails which connect to a cross member spanning the side rails. In those solutions, each side rail included an extension bearing a socket to receive one end of the cross member. The chair has a fabric seating member retained to the side rails. The cross member and side rails provide both a structural frame for the sling chair as well as a frame for the fabric seating member. These solutions reduce the traditional redundant separate chair and sling frames to one frame.
Those solutions, while valuable improvements over the available alternatives, are not without their drawbacks. For example, due to the shape of the channel in the side rails, assembling the chair first requires sliding the fabric seating member into the side rail. As a consequence, the cross member and side rails must be assembled after inserting the fabric seating member into the side rail.